Be worried, be very worried!
The Germans, with their many phobias about Covid, freedom of speech, or climate change, should fear the elephant in the room for a change: a grey, chunky monster lurking in the port of Hamburg.
I hate to repeat myself, but listen, please: Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Yes, there it is again. Faster than last time I wrote about it in my German magazine TWASBO, only two months ago. Many people wouldn't even be aware of the ticking without this little mindfulness exercise, as they are now so focused on Christmas shopping and getting wasted on mulled wine. But unfortunately, sorry, here we go: Tick. Tock. World. War.
What surprises me a little is that you're not afraid, or bothered even. You're usually afraid of everything you’re told to be afraid of. Nazis. Climate change. Freedom of speech. Social decline. And, despite everything that has surfaced in the meantime, Covid! The only thing you don’t seem to be afraid of is the Third World War.
The ship in the picture above is an aircraft carrier, a terrible weapon of mass destruction. Understandably, hardly anyone in this country has any idea about it, because such a formidable war machine was not part of the inventory in the cuddly doll's house of pacifist Germany. So, may I introduce: HMS Queen Elizabeth. One of two identical British Royal Navy carriers, almost 300 meters long, commissioned in 2017, costing around 3.5 billion pounds or euros or dollars - the currency denomination doesn't matter in this price range anyway. Equipped with up to 40 multi-purpose combat aircraft. From the Queen's command center, you can engage an entire developing country by yourself. Or, as part of a NATO force, Russia.
And that's why the British dropped anchor here in my city of Hamburg these days. Bizarrely, their death carrier positioned itself directly opposite the Hamburg Cruise Center. This dull gray foreign body in the water must have disturbed the cruise enthusiasts. Anyway, the British are currently going to war. Against Russia. Not yet with this ship, but with other heavy offensive weapons (more on this below). While Germany - and this is the only thing I can give my country credit for - is still reluctant to give up its “Taurus” cruise missiles for attacks on Russian targets. Ironically, one of the most incompetent and failed Federal Chancellors of all time is still the one who, against the resistance of the Greens, has so far kept the last thin thread of reason from breaking.
“Joe Biden” on the other hand, or rather the invisible cabale acting on his behalf, is forging ahead in a completely different spirit (while the outgoing president struggles to consciously finish his breakfast): Three days ago, US long-range missiles were approved for launch at Russia in his name. And the day before yesterday, the first six of those took flight. The Ukrainian army, or what is left of it, did not press the decisive buttons. It only provided the flag and uniform. The “Go!” required NATO satellites and NATO specialists who evaluate encrypted surveillance data and calculate highly complex trajectories in their IT centers. In other words, Americans, French, or British IT centers. Ukrainians don't have the means.
As a result, Vladimir Putin has now changed his country's nuclear war rules: From now on, superpowers and their vassal states must expect nuclear retaliatory strikes from Moscow even if they attack Russia with conventional missiles or aircraft in great numbers.
This may outrage you, but the Russian president by no means sees his Ukraine campaign as an unprovoked war of aggression out of the blue. Indeed, he begs to differ profoundly from what the German heritage media, under the influence of politicians and US intelligence services, have been telling you non-stop for almost three years. And he can put forward good arguments for his point of view.
But since Putin, like Donald Trump, is now evil personified for many in the West: Perhaps those people rather believe Jeffrey Sachs? The renowned US economist and former professor at Columbia University has briefly and concisely explained some of the geostrategic background to the war in Ukraine. On TicToc (how aptly named!) you can find his explanations formatted for today's attention spans:
Now that Moscow's red lines had been crossed once one more time by the American long-range missiles decision, London wanted to have its own turn of overstepping. After all, historically not just the Americans have previous with imperialism and proxy wars; the Commonwealth in its prime used to be an Empire too. And so yesterday, British long-range missiles rained on Russia - again, of course, from Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian positions with the help of Ukrainian extras. This painstakingly preserved the annoying form of “non-direct involvement”.
Perhaps the French will join in tomorrow. Macron has long been keen to get involved with all guns blazing. And who knows, maybe that will finally get those bitchy Germans on board.
Like Peter Tschentscher, for example. Not that a provincial figure like him has any say in matters of war, mind you. But our Social Democratic (SPD) mayor of Hamburg has the talent and flexibility to declare the powerful interests of others his own reason of state at any time. He demonstrated as much during the pandemic, when he wouldn’t let anyone outdo him in terms of incendiary rhetoric and tough measures, including curfews, school closures and a subway ban for the “unvaccinated”. That it was all hysterical, socially divisive, largely pointless and even extremely harmful, except for Big Pharma - not a word of contrition from medical graduate Tschentscher to this day.
And now, in times of severe international tension, he is once again spreading the vocabulary de jour. Whether this means that the chances of diplomacy and peaceful solutions are pulverized a little more every day: it doesn't matter! The main thing is that he is seen as a reliable cadre in his circles. These circles currently include British and German military bigwigs in dress uniforms, as a naval delegation from England is in town. And the SPD politician has evidently found his signature PR theme with the “war port of Hamburg” (not only the Bundestag elections are looming in February, but also the Hamburg city state parliament will be elected).
Eight weeks ago, Tschentscher told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper that “in the event of war, for example, NATO might have to make use of our port”. And bang, NATO buddy Great Britain is already making use of it, big time! For now, it remains a matter of wild speculation as to what exactly the aircraft carrier sent to us is being used for other than for glizzy show effect.
During my own visit to the fleet yesterday (by walking, no less) to photograph the war machine, I ambled into a patrol of British marines with automatic weapons who were enforcing a “security zone” around the carrier. You can't be too careful, even when there's a whole harbor basin in between.
Meanwhile, our mayor did not miss the opportunity to blather in English at a reception attended by the British Consul General: something about Queen Elizabeth 's visit sending “a signal to the East”, because for the first time since the Cold War, NATO was “once again facing a direct military threat”. What kind of threat this was supposed to be, apart from a counterstrike, because two NATO armies were already attacking Russia from the Ukraine with NATO missiles, remained unmentioned.
In any case, there are not threats of invasion against Hamburg or massing troops on the western borders of Russia, which is increasingly being strangled by NATO. The normal Russian citizens seem to be happily self-indulgent anyway, as according to the CIA Factbook they have now overtaken Germany (and Japan) in terms of real GNP despite all the sanctions. Incidentally, it wasn’t Russia that blew up its own Nordstream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. But it's like with Covid: the thousandfold, targeted repetition of bullshit produces its own truths.
And that repetition sets in motion a momentum of its own that once again leaves me stunned. For example, there is now an “Operational Plan Germany”. By this bold strategy, our Bundeswehr army is currently preparing our economy for the event of an “expansion of the Russian war of aggression”, wrote yesterday's Hamburger Abendblatt, once again completely uncritically. Of course, the details of the paper are “secret”. This surely will certainly help companies to prepare even better for the new normality of war.
In all seriousness, the plan aims to regulate the “role of the economy” in an emergency, including valuable recommendations such as this one quoted by the Abendblatt: “For every hundred employees, train at least five additional truck drivers that you don't need,” said the head of the Bundeswehr's Hamburg State Command. Because these five drivers could then replace the Eastern Europeans at the steering wheels of the company fleet, who would presumably simply desert in a war against Russia. You can't make it all up.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. I wonder what the next stage of escalation between “West” and “East” will look like? Only one thing seems clear: it will follow shortly. There are only two months left until the Trump adminstration takes office and could possibly, shock horror, even initiate peace negotiations. Until then, the profiteers still have time to extract the maximum return on investment from the arsenals of mass destruction. And since most Hamburgers (or Germans, or Westerners for that matter) are not demonstrating against it, not protesting, not boycotting, not bothering, it will happen. That’s a safe bet.
Born in peaceful times myself, I carry the gene of war traumatization from a generation before my time. And this gene, as useful as it is terrorizing, has been setting off all my alarm instincts for months by now. My alternative address of greetings to the crew of HMS Queen Elizabeth, not authorized by mayor Tschentscher, therefore is this: Warmongers like you attract war. You are not here in my name. You are not welcome in Hamburg.